If there was ever a year to have the 12-team College Football Playoff, 2024 is it! Yes, there may be hurt feelings when either Alabama or SMU does not make the field, but we know for a fact the other 11 teams are safe in Arizona State, Boise State, Clemson, Georgia, Indiana, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oregon, Penn State, Tennessee and Texas. Now can you imagine what a four-team field would be?
We did this only a year ago. What we have to remember is the Selection Committee did not care about conference championships in the first 10 machinations of this, just the four best teams. In every instance where a team was rewarded for being the most deserving, college football fans eventually paid a price for it with a lousy game. Thus, we have to reshape our brains just a bit here.
If we still had a four-team College Football Playoff, here is my best guess of who would have made it.
- Oregon Ducks (13-0) (Big Ten champion)
- Notre Dame Fighting Irish (11-1) (National independent at-large)
- Georgia Bulldogs (11-2) (SEC champion)
- Texas Longhorns (11-2) (SEC runner-up)
With Texas being the No. 4 seed, that means these teams would have been the first two out this year.
- 5. Penn State Nittany Lions (11-2) (Big Ten runner-up)
- 6. Ohio State Buckeyes (10-2) (Big Ten)
Oregon, Notre Dame and Georgia would be comfortably in. Oregon is the only undefeated team left. Notre Dame is the best one-loss team in the country. Georgia navigated the hardest schedule by winning the SEC. I ended up siding with Texas for this reason. Despite losing to Georgia twice, the Selection Committee was never going to give us an Oregon rematch with Ohio State or Penn State.
Texas edges out Ohio State because of the 13th quality point. Penn State might have some beef...
What a four-team College Football Playoff may have looked like for 2024
What I think people may fail to remember is a two-loss, non-conference finalist was never once respected by the Selection Committee. I think that hurts teams like Ohio State and Tennessee quite considerably here. Because you cannot reasonably put Penn State ahead of either Notre Dame or Georgia here, it is hard to argue that the Selection Committee would make an exception for them.
Yes, Texas is probably just as undeserving as Penn State in the old four-team playoff format, but we would not be guaranteed a third matchup between Georgia and Texas. The Longhorns would need to get past Oregon first. While I think you could argue that Georgia and Notre Dame's seeds could be swapped, they would still be playing each other in a neutral-site affair in their major national semifinal.
Ultimately, we should be so glad that this year was not going to be decided by a four-team playoff. It would have left the ACC, the Big 12 and the Group of Five out of it entirely. We are so much better for having teams like Arizon State, Boise State, Clemson and maybe, just maybe SMU getting bids. When the model no longer achieves what it is set out to accomplish, it is time to pivot to an updated one.
The Selection Committee picking Texas over Penn State in this format would have destroyed Twitter.